How the French press is giving François Hollande an easy ride

France's press has responded with kid gloves to the allegations of François
Hollande's affair, writes Rory Mulholland in Paris

Whilst European newspapers are awash with coverage about Francois Hollande's alleged affair, newspapers in France have given the President a seemingly easy ride Photo: AFP

By Rory Mulholland, Paris

4:07PM GMT 13 Jan 2014

A presidential affair with an actress, a first lady admitted to hospital, hints of mafia links – all the ingredients to send the press into a frenzy?

Not inFrance, where the media have givenFrançois Hollandea decidedly easy ride since news broke of his alleged liaison with a film star nearly two decades his junior.

The agenda-setting breakfast news on France Inter radio, the equivalent of BBC Radio 4's Today programme, led on Monday morning with Paris taxi drivers going on strike, followed by an item on cigarette prices rising, before devoting all of two minutes to the latest twist in the presidential soap opera.

That twist was a major one – that "First Girlfriend" Valérie Trierweiler was in hospital with the "blues" after hearing of her partner's alleged infidelity, and reports that the flat used for the presidential tryst was linked to Corsican mobsters.

But it was far from enough to send the French press baying for blood. It did not appear at all on the bulletin on news radio France Info at 2pm, while the main television stations kept it low on the running order.

There were polite calls for Mr Hollande to clearly state if Miss Trierweiler would continue as first lady and benefit from her state-funded office and staff of five, or to explain why he put himself at risk by sneaking out of the Elysee on a scooter to spend the night in a flat used by people with links to the mafia.

But there was none of the aggression that such antics would have instantly provoked in the UK press had a British leader transgressed in a similar manner.

Nor was there much sign that journalistic resources were being thrown at finding out more about the apartment on the Rue Du Cirque, a stone's throw from the Elysee. That was largely left to Mediapart, the upstart online news outfit that has broken several stories that rocked the French establishment. Le Monde got in on the act a day later.

The blonde actress, 41-year-old Julie Gayet, alleged to be Mr Hollande's latest love interest has not been seen or heard since the gossip magazine Closer broke the story on Friday.

While the British press would likely have staked out her home and tracked down people close to her, there has apparently been no attempt to do so here.

The media handling of the affair echoes the attitude of politicians, who, on both left and right, have largely closed ranks and professed outrage at the invasion of the president's privacy.

Days after the story broke, some of Mr Hollande's political opponents sought to exploit the story, with Jean-Francois Cope, leader of the UMP opposition party, and far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon saying respectively the “affair” was “disastrous” for the president’s image and that it clearly had a “public impact”.

The French pride themselves on sticking to the mantra that the public interest stops at the bedroom door, and the country has strict privacy laws that have protected politicians from the tabloid scrutiny their British and US peers are subjected to.

This was convenient for previous presidents with colourful love lives and for Dominique Strauss-Kahn, until his behaviour led to charges of sexual assault.

While the French public seem to agree that private life and public office should be kept separate – a poll on Sunday said 77 per cent of them believe the alleged affair with Miss Gayet was a private matter – there is huge appetite for salacious details on the French elite's nocturnal activities.

All 600,000 copies of Closer were sold out on Friday within a few hours.